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Monday, June 20, 2011

It does a body good

Where to put the chaise lounge?

My husband built a milking stand and we've begun regularly milking Natalie. Some first impressions:

-Milking is enjoyable and satisfying when the goat cooperates.
-Milking is maddening and messy when the goat doesn't.
-Milking forces you to confront earthy realities about food which is currently very voguish but also, I think, basically a good thing.

While I've known that milk comes from live animals since I was 3, until a week ago I had only ever acquired it from a carton at the supermarket. It has been disorienting, therefore, to suddenly start squeezing milk from the body of a bony, noisy, inquisitive mammal who tries to eat the buttons on my shirt and never, ever, bathes. Then to take the white fluid up to the kitchen and put it in my coffee? How weird.

But, of course, it's not weird at all. What's weird is that I would ever think it was.

13 comments:

I love it. I totally agree. It's how I felt the first time I actually grew my own lettuce - but was slightly creeped out by eating something that I witnessed growing out of the dirt. So strange how disconnected we are from the whole life cycle thing.

I had that reaction when I realized my own BODY was producing that white stuff my baby needed to live! Makes the world make sense somehow though. You can never think of breasts/ udders the same again once you realize why they exist.

We got to milk some goats at Hidden Villa. Very satisfying. I love the hiss of the milk against the side of the bucket. We're confronting earthy realities about food at our house, too. My kids mail ordered quail to raise for eggs and got 8 males and one female. Now these cute little birds are eating each other alive. We accidentally crushed one and there was great mourning and a funeral and now, 4 weeks later, we're giving half our pets to a friend to eat.

Moro by Sam & Sam Clark. Shelf essential? Yes. An all-time favorite. A brilliant and fascinating book about the cuisines of North Africa and the Mediterranean.

Gourmet Today edited by Ruth Reichl. Shelf Essential? No. Not a bad book, but it can't decide if it's aspiring to be an all-purpose classic or something else entirely. It's neither. Recipes are mostly solid, few outstanding.

Mexico, One Plate at a Time by Rick Bayless. Shelf essential? No, but a very useful and reliable Mexican cookbook.

Revolutionary Chinese Cookbook by Fuchsia Dunlop. Shelf essential? Yes, especially if you're a Chinese food fanatic and want to delve into its regional cuisines. Though some of the recipes are too weird even for me, the beef with cumin was one of the best things I've ever cooked.

The Seventh Daughter by Cecilia Chiang. Shelf essential? Sure, though if there's only room in your collection for one "basic" Chinese cookbook go for Barbara Tropp's Modern Art of Chinese Cooking.